http://michellemalkin.com/2012/06/29/democrats-new-motto-never-let-a-wildfire-go-to-waste/
http://www.denverpost.com/wildfires/ci_20979817/colorado-wildfire-waldp-canyon-fire-and-30-percent
and relevant links for information from Denver Post...
06/30 12:46 AMStanding among the charred remains of the neighborhood hardest hit by the Waldo Canyon fire, a stunned President Barack Obama said, "For those families, the work and the sacrifice of those firefighters means the world to them."
Democrats’ New Motto: Never Let a Wildfire Go to Waste
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Note: My column below deals with wildfire politics in advance of President Obama’s visit. But as you all know, this is also personal. My family and I are approaching a full week as Waldo Canyon Fire evacuees. As readers of this blog (archive here) and my Twitter feed have been reading, we were forced to leave our home Saturday afternoon. Some 32,000 were displaced by mid-week. Nearly 350 saw their homes burned to the ground, including many belonging to our friends and acquaintances. (Must-see before and after pics.) Last night, officials allowed many residents to return to their neighborhoods, but ours remains under mandatory evacuation. While light rain provided a little relief yesterday, the blaze is still burning. The night ended on a tragic note with officials revealing that a body had been discovered in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood at one of the scorched homes. Several others are still missing. Also last night: A new fire broke out near Grand Junction — the Pine Ridge Fire — that has already consumed 10,000 acres and closed I-70.
Democrats’ New Motto: Never Let a Wildfire Go to Waste
by Michelle Malkin
Creators SyndicateCopyright 2012
by Michelle Malkin
Creators SyndicateCopyright 2012
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Did you know that President Obama has been incommunicado with Colorado’s governor for more than two weeks as the nation’s worst wildfires rage across the state? Maybe he thought we were all “doing fine.” After an embarrassing Beltway press briefing revelation about our out-of-touch White House, the administration finally decided to divert the campaigner in chief from his nationwide fundraising frenzy for a quick look-see at our devastated city on Friday. It’s “leadership from behind” you can count on.
On Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that Obama hadn’t talked to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper in 15 days. Holy smokes. The High Park fire, which has consumed nearly 90,000 acres and claimed nearly 257 homes west of Fort Collins, ignited on June 9 and is still active. During a campaign swing just last week, first lady Michelle Obama made a brief mention of the High Park fire before launching into her standard GOP-bashing stump speeches.
On June 23, the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs erupted. An estimated 19,000 acres and nearly 350 homes burned down to the ground on Tuesday. More than 32,000 have been displaced so far. My family was forced to abandon our home on Saturday, and our neighborhood remains in a mandatory evacuation zone. On June 27, Boulder’s Flagstaff fire broke out and has so far blazed through 300 acres. While he made no public statements prior to the announcement of his visit, an irritated Carney told reporters on Wednesday that Obama was being“updated regularly” on the wildfires in Colorado and across the West. He then rushed out a face-saving press release heralding the president’s hasty phone call that afternoon to Hickenlooper and Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach, in which he “expressed his concern about the extent of damage to homes in the Colorado Springs area, and informed both the governor and the mayor that he plans to travel to the area Friday to view the damage and thank the responders bravely battling the fire.”
As Obama sightsees overhead in this key swing state and surrounds himself with first responders for campaign-ready photo-ops, his supporters on the ground are busy spewing excuses, attacks and death wishes on their political opponents. I know. I’ve received countless numbers of them hoping that firefighters let my“mansion” burn down and gloating that God or karma is punishingColorado’s conservative population. Liberals took to Twitter to bash local GOP officials and me as “fire retardants” who should be dropped over the blaze. And jokes about Colorado social conservatives like this proliferated: “If this Colorado fire takes out the Focus on the Family campus, then God really exists.”
The sniping isn’t limited to social media. Obama strategist Rahm Emanuel said in 2008: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” On cue, Hickenlooper mocked limited-government watchdogs who questioned the Obama administration’s decision to cancel a key aerial tanker contract last summer. (It was the topic of my June 20 column last week, “How Obama Bureaucrats Fueled Western Wildfires.”) The Denver Post reported Wednesday: “Asked about criticism from the right over the Obama administration’s canceling of the contract, Hickenlooper offered an uncharacteristically strong defense of the president. ‘Were these the same conservatives that were so worried about the Obama administration spending too much money, or were these different conservatives?’ Hickenlooper said. ‘Quite honestly, in a situation like this where over 30,000 people have been evacuated, I don’t think that (criticism of Obama) is appropriate,’ the governor said. ‘We should be focusing our support on them and on the people out there risking their lives to fight these fires.’”
Spare us the sanctimony, and lay off the firefighter human shield strategy. The conservatives in Congress and libertarians at MonkeyWrenchingAmerica.com and elsewhere on the right who called attention to the U.S. Forest Service’s aging, neglected and undercapitalized aerial tanker fleet are the same conservatives who have doggedly called attention to the Obama administration’s serial squandering of taxpayer dollars on nonessential, ineffective, crony-driven spending. We are the conservatives worried about dumping billions of dollars into bankrupt federal green boondoggles like Solyndra, Abound Solar, Beacon Power, Ener1 and LightSquared at the expense of fundamental services — like fighting fires.
It is entirely appropriate and possible to question this administration’s policy decisions while supporting frontline emergency personnel at the same time. And it is entirely logical and rational to express gratitude for firefighters and police officers — while working to ensure the long-term financial viability of their departments through tough but necessary budget and public employee union reforms. But don’t look to Obama to put out the flames of politically expedient and inflammatory rhetoric. He may be slow on the uptake to respond to national crises, but when it comes to exploiting them, he’s an industrial-grade accelerant.
and....
http://www.denverpost.com/wildfires/ci_20979817/colorado-wildfire-waldp-canyon-fire-and-30-percent
Colorado wildfire: Waldo Canyon fire at 30 percent containment
The Waldo Canyon fire is at 30 percent containment Saturday morning, but firefighters warn that weather conditions will be tougher than Friday.
The air will be hotter, dryer and winds will be stronger and changing directions, Incident Commander Rich Harvey said in a news briefing this morning. Possible afternoon thunderstorms could bring gusty winds, he added.
The tougher conditions will test the ability of firefighters to hold their lines, but they will attempt to increase containment as well, said Jeri Marr, U.S. Forest Service supervisor.
"We feel real great about the hard work we've done," Marr said. "Today will be a great test."
Saturday's weather forecast calls for temperatures near 100 degrees, which is 15 degrees above the normal for this time of year.
Authorities said they are working on a plan to bring residents into the Mountain Shadows neighborhood by Sunday so they can inspect their properties. The plans are still being worked out.
Other officials said a small army of utility employees will attempt to restore gas, electricity and water to most of the 990 homes that have been affected by the fire.
Gov. John Hicklooper has signed an order approving the use of 160 National Guard police officers to take over some of the traffic control and neighborhood patrolling duties so that Colorado Springs police officers can return to their normal responsibilities.
Fire crews will work to hold and improve the line from Rampart Ridge Road south to Highway 24, eliminating hotspots, extinguishing roll-out logs and protecting homes. Firefighters are working as quickly as possible to reopen Highway 24.
Ten helicopters will make retardant drops on the northern perimeter as firefighters attempt to hold the blaze south of Monument Creek. Air, bulldozer and hand crews are aggressively attacking three spot fires that flared up northeast of Rampart Reservoir.
They are building a contingency bulldozer line along Mt. Herman Road north of the fire.
The Waldo Canyon fire has burned 347 homes in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood as well as a fire station and a Red Cross evacuation shelter.
As of Friday night, the wildfire had burned 17,033 acres and was 25 percent contained. The cost of fighting the blaze has risen to $6.9 million. Nearly 1,300 people are battling the wildfire that started a week ago.
President Barack Obama toured the devastation and shook hands with firefighters and thanked them for their service Friday.
"For those families, the work and the sacrifice of those firefighters means the world to them," Obama said at a news conference outside a Colorado Springs fire station.
Authorities on Friday confirmed that the remains of two people were found at 2910 Rossmere St. Neighbors said a couple in their 70s live there alone and have not been seen or answered their cellphones since the fire broke out.
Also Friday, officials said U.S. Forest Service investigators were interested in speaking with anyone who was in the Waldo Canyon or Pyramid Mountain areas during the afternoon, evening or night of June 22, the day before the blaze was reported.
The FBI has previously said it is working with local authorities to determine whether the fire is a result of a criminal act.
http://www.coloradoan.com/viewart/20120629/NEWS01/306290037/High-Park-Fire-93-percent-containment
http://www.coloradoan.com/viewart/20120629/NEWS01/306290037/High-Park-Fire-93-percent-containment
High Park Fire managers say they have discovered an additional two burned-out homes in the Glacier View area, bringing the total number of destroyed houses to 259.
Fire managers say they will have the fire northwest of Fort Collins fully contained by Saturday evening. The fire was 93 percent contained as of Friday night.
Evacuations for Glacier View filing 12 were lifted at noon Friday, and fire managers say they hope to have all Poudre Canyon and Pingree Park area residents home by the end of the weekend, depending on when they reach full containment.
Meanwhile, all pre-evacuation notices, totaling 3,585, have been lifted, leaving only four areas under full evacuation:
• Areas accessed from Pingree Park Road (County Road 63E)
• Areas accessed from Old Flowers Road (County Road 52E) west of the 8000 block
• Areas accessed from Buckhorn Road (County Road 44H)
• Areas accessed from Colorado Highway 14 between Mishawaka and Eggers
About 1,100 firefighters are working the fire, down from a peak of about 2,000.
A heat-sensing helicopter was used Friday to guide firefighters to remaining heat pockets around structures in the burn area, according to an InciWeb update.
Smoke will remain visible in the weeks ahead, officials say.
“The lesson is that in this season of historic drought, dry windy weather can conspire to make for sudden and unpredictable fire growth,” fire managers stated in the update, nothing that some days the fire didn’t move at all, while other days it grew ferociously: 7 miles in five hours on June 22 and 9 miles on June 11.
and relevant links for information from Denver Post...
06/30 12:46 AMStanding among the charred remains of the neighborhood hardest hit by the Waldo Canyon fire, a stunned President Barack Obama said, "For those families, the work and the sacrifice of those firefighters means the world to them."
- Damage: Officials release list of homes affected
- Related: 2nd body found in Waldo Canyon fire
- Firefighters: Battling fire, a house at a time
- Tips: Authorities seek tips on Waldo Canyon tragedy
- High Park Fire: Evacuees return home
- Wildfire page: View complete coverage on wildfires
- Live Blog: Real-time updates on the fire
- Map: Waldo Canyon Fire perimeter
- Assistance: How to help wildfire victims
- Map: Google Crisis Response fire resource map
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